1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to shipping containers, and more specifically to shipping containers having an integrated pallet.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Corrugated paperboard containers are commonly used to store and transport a variety of goods. Many of these containers are quite large, holding 2,000 pounds or more of product, and typically are placed on pallets so that the containers may be handled with forklifts or jack trucks and the like. Wooden pallets are used in most conventional systems. These pallets are strong but they also are relatively heavy and expensive and are difficult to transport or recycle after use. Moreover, containers that are stacked upon but not fastened to the pallet may become displaced during handling, thereby causing the forklift operator to waste valuable time in rearranging the containers on the pallet. In extreme cases, the containers may actually fall off the pallet, causing damage to or destruction of the goods being transported.
To avoid these problems, integrated container and pallet constructions have been developed in the prior art. In these constructions the bottom of the container is configured to have a pallet integrated into it, with outboard runners of the pallet extending along the outer side edges of the container, and openings inboard of the outboard runners for receiving the tines of a forklift. Conventional containers of this type usually are dimensioned to fit on a standard 40 inch by 48 inch pallet, and the tines of a forklift normally are set so that they extend through the openings inboard of the outermost runners. This spacing is appropriate for containers having a conventional width, but when narrower containers are used with the foregoing runner construction, i.e., with the outermost runners extending along the outer side edges of the container, the spacing between the tine-receiving openings is smaller than the normal spacing of the forklift tines.
Narrower shipping containers are encountered, for example, in the transportation of goods intended for import or export. Goods intended for import or export typically are placed in shipping containers that are, in turn, stacked in large standardized sea containers for transport on container ships. These sea containers typically have standard lengths of, e.g., 20 feet or 40 feet, and a width of 8.5 feet, with a nominal interior usable width of about 90 inches. To maximize use of the available space in the sea container, a common width for the shipping containers is 30 inches, whereby they can be placed three abreast in the sea container. If these shipping containers have an integrated pallet, with the outboard runners extending along the side edges of the container and the tine-receiving openings inboard of these runners, the tines of a forklift, at their normal spacing, will not correspond to the spacing of the openings, whereby the forklift operator must come down off his machine to adjust the tines to fit the smaller container. In reality this frequently does not happen, with the result that the containers are damaged.
It would be desirable to have a shipping container with integrated pallet, wherein the container has a narrow width adapted for maximum utilization of the available space in standard sea containers, and the openings for the tines of a forklift are spaced so that adjustment of the tines is not necessary in order to fit the narrower container.